Archive - Aug 2008

Just visited a bunch of areas where police are raiding homes and detaining people - often releasing them hours later without charge. In particular, the police detained a whole bunch of video workers who are from NYC, where their work proved officers lied on some 400 charges against protesters 4 years ago at the RNC NYC.

Complete crap. Guess we are no better than the rest of the country. Constitution may provide redress later, but does little to protect rights now. Ridiculous.

Last night, Ramsey County and St. Paul Police raided a meeting where people were planning protests against the Republican National Convention, which starts next week. Nothing is clear yet, except that the police have little respect for the Constitution. More details here.

This morning, I got a call from a friend working with the National Lawyers Guild - they needed a photographer to get out to S. Minneapolis because there were more raids. So I grabbed my gear and headed out to see what photos I might get.

Arrived about 1 hour after the police raided the house. They were still dealing with some of the occupants though they had already arrested and removed 3 who were on the search warrant. They took crime-scene photos of 2 cars out front (MN plates, so much for the out-of-towners coming in and causing problems, eh).

Justification of the warrant is dubious and the word is that home owner and 2 occupants are charged with conspiracy to riot. The warrant sought a number of things, including Molotov cocktails - assembled or not. Unfortunately, this is a total bullshit claim. 95% of houses have disassembled Molotov cocktails - a bottle of liquor and a t-shirt in another room. Add some nails from the basement and you have a shrapnel bomb. These warrants are designed to get anyone busted.

Hazmat teams came in because the house has long stored biodiesel. Sure, they have been using it to power their van, but having it means they must be preparing to blow shit up. Raid and raid in the Twin Cities - I'm disappointed as I had higher hopes for protecting rights to dissent. Early word from raid last night suggested that they were taking all manner of cameras and computers for evidence. How someone was going to blow up the Xcel with a camera is beyond me.

I'll probably be putting more coverage up as I learn more. I'll go out if more news breaks today, otherwise I'll be shooting the Gopher football game tonight and heading to the march against torture or something like that tomorrow in the late morning.

Best local coverage is on Twincities Indymedia, The Uptake, and Twincities Daily Planet.

This is a great interview. Huckabee actually speaks honestly, not just trying to make partisan points. And he makes sense. Refreshing.

Where will I be on Tuesday night? RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC.

THANK YOU Republicans! The aristocratic'er party, the Repubs are in St. Paul and some great bands are coming to meet them. Steve Earle is playing on Monday. Awesome!

On Wed, I'll finally get to see Rage Against the Machine at the Target Center in Minneapolis - thanks to Kimmi with the early birthday gift.

And now - on Tues, Michael Franti and Dead Prez on the Capitol lawn! It's the Ripple Effect 08!.

If you have any doubts or confusion or interest about the so-called debate between evolution and "intelligent design," you should check out Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Michelle and I just watched it - got it from Netflix.

It was done by PBS's Nova. I'm not very familiar with Nova, but this was a stunning documentary. Very well done - presenting a complex, technical discussion in very accessible terms.

It does not just explain what happened in Dover (where the school board tried to promote Intelligent Design and was sued by citizens which led to a federal court deciding whether "Intelligent Design" was a promotion of religion or not). It explains evolution in an elegant and impressive way.

This case will serve us well as citizens because the scientists rebuffed all the claims of "gaps" in evolution and explained (patiently) why the claims made by the "Intelligent Designers" were inaccurate.

In the end, this comes down to people who are anti-science and do not want their children learning science because it may cause them to question their faith in the Bible. The problem is that the Bible is filled with stories - some we take to be parables and some are taken to be literal truth. Over time, which is which gets changed. Many who believe in the Bible have no problem believing in evolution - it is time for the other believers to figure it out.

The best part? The Judge, with the evidence before him, had no choice but to rule against Intelligent Design. And he was a Bush appointee.

I am just stunned at how well this documentary was put together and how impressive a case the scientific folks built. I learned a lot about evolution.

But this debate comes down to whether science belongs in the science classroom or not. Some do not like science - they distrust it even as they use modern medicines and technologies that would never be possible without science. Teach God in school all you want - but equal time for voodoo, shamans, pagans, Islam, Greek mythology, Christianity, etc.

Regardless of my feelings for Hillary, I am not so small that I won't note publicly that she gave a stunning speech last night that was rather inspiring. The bit about the Underground Railroad was the part that really got me.

Newsweek recently ran a cover story by Fareed Zakaria examining what Bush has done right. It isn't long, but it is worth reading. Why?

There was a U.S. president who came into office convinced that everything his predecessor had done was feckless, stupid, ill-informed and venal. He rejected and tried to reverse everything that he could, almost as an article of faith. Before he had even examined the policies carefully, he knew that they had to be changed. The base of his party was delighted by his clarity and fighting spirit.

That president, of course, was George W. Bush. His decision to blindly repudiate anything associated with Bill Clinton is what got us into this mess in the first place. Let's hope that the next president, no matter how much he despises Bush, will take a careful look at his administration's policies, America's interests, and the world beyond and do the right thing for the
country and its future.

I've read a lot about 9/11 and it is clear to me that the Bush Administration did nothing to combat terror in the first 9 months of coming to power because it believed the Clinton Administration was totally wrong to have ignored the greatest threat to the U.S. - China. So they stopped everything Clinton had set up. Maybe a mere continuation of those plans and efforts would have stopped 9/11. Probably not.

But the country was clearly damaged greatly by the arrogance of the new Administration believing it would do well to simply reverse nearly everything the Clinton Admin did. I would not expect the Obama Administration act so cavalierly or thoughtlessly, but one never knows.

I would like to emphasize that, from what I can tell, nearly everything that Bush has done "right" has come about by exhausting as many of the "wrong" options as those incompetent fools could find. Judgment indeed.

Hey all - Kimmi is again raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as she trains for the Madison IronMan race. If you can help her meet her goal, I would greatly appreciate it. You can donate online here.

It's a good cause and the amount of work she has put into her training is insane. Through injuries, pain, and frustration (and some ice cream here and there), she has stuck to her goal and will give it her all.

I have been rock climbing for 6 years. I've made some mistakes here and there that could have been bad but I have never really hurt myself climbing. Until last night. So now, when people ask about how climbing is dangerous, I can no longer say I have never hurt myself (as compared to soccer, which regularly left me messed up in comparison).

I was climbing a hardish route I've done a couple of other times but I was trying a different way of doing the crux (hardest) move. It put too much pressure on my knee at the wrong angle and it gave way in a rather painful way.

So I came down and figured I had tweaked my MCL by forcing my foot to go 90 degrees in the wrong direction and making the knee give out for a quarter second. It didn't hurt too bad but I stopped climbing and left the gym for home a short while later.

Time for RICE - rest, ice, compression, and elevation. But after last night and tentatively testing it out, I suspect that I dislocated my kneecap for the third time. Soccer caused the first two, leaving it a bit weakened, so maybe I can blame soccer more than climbing for this injury.

I have all the stuff I need to give it time to heal - compression socks, crutches, and even a giant foam thingy all me to keep the knee over my heart so it drains. Fortunately, I was already planning on working from home this morning, so I can still do that.

It doesn't hurt much - as long as I keep it under compression and knee isn't swelled too much. Which is good - because I have a soccer game I must shoot tonight and a wedding tomorrow that would be pretty pissed off if I didn't show up with my camera!

But other than that, I'll be reading and chilling this weekend I guess - and we'll see how it feels on day 3 (day 2 is usually the worst).

Really, as far as knee/ankle injuries go, this one is pretty harmless and comparatively easy to deal with.

I'm already looking forward to a new bridge (well, old bridge fixed) over the Minnesota River that will be open by 2010.

Always looking for new routes and exciting places to visit without a car! Where is it? Old Cedar Ave is just below 77 here. They are going to replace a bridge that has been closed for the past 5 years.

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